disturbing my tranquillity but leave me at peace in my solitude. I
should have preferred being confined there by their desire: this would
have rendered the continuation of my repose more certain.

This is another declaration upon which I am previously certain of the
incredulity of many of my readers, who obstinately continue to judge me
by themselves, although they cannot but have seen, in the course of my
life, a thousand internal affections which bore no resemblance to any of
theirs. But what is still more extraordinary is, that they refuse me
every sentiment, good or indifferent, which they have not, and are
constantly ready to attribute to me such bad ones as cannot enter into
the heart of man: in this case they find it easy to set me in opposition
to nature, and to make of me such a monster as cannot in reality exist.
Nothing absurd appears to them incredible, the moment it has a tendency
to blacken me, and nothing in the least extraordinary seems to them
possible, if it tends to do me honor.

But, notwithstanding what they may think or say, I will still continue
faithfully to state what J. J. Rousseau was, did, and thought; without
explaining, or justifying, the singularity of his sentiments and ideas,
or endeavoring to discover whether or not others have thought as he did.
I became so delighted with the island of St. Peter, and my residence
there was so agreeable to me that, by concentrating all my desires within
it, I formed the wish that I might stay there to the end of my life. The
visits I had to return in the neighborhood, the journeys I should be
under the necessity of making to Neuchatel, Bienne, Yverdon, and Nidau,
already fatigued my imagination. A day passed out of the island, seemed
to me a loss of so much happiness, and to go beyond the bounds of the
lake was to go out of my element. Past experience had besides rendered
me apprehensive. The very satisfaction that I received from anything